Posts tagged campus energy use

Next spring, both Emory and Hollins will be putting their commitment to conservation to the test. Both schools will be competing in the Campus Conservation Nationals. This national energy challenge, hosted by Lucid Design Group, the US Green Building Council, the Alliance to Save Energy, and the National Wildlife Federation, will include more than 170 schools across the country.

The competition will be taking place in select residence halls on each campus. At Emory, these will include Hillman and Wiley-Jackson. At Hollins, the competing halls will be Tinker, Randolph, East, West, and Main. We will be competing nationally for a chance to win two Lucid Design building dashboards. Results will be measured by percent reduction in electricity usage versus a baseline period to take place prior to the competition. Additionally, the biggest reducer on each campus will win a prize (to be determined later, but most likely involving free food!).

More details will be available early next semester. If you are interested in getting involved by being a floor captain, developing marketing materials, or just spreading the word, feel free to send me an email (freedmanjb at hollins dot edu).

One recurring theme I’ve heard from both campuses is that we haven’t done a great job publicizing our energy efforts. A major accomplishment that isn’t well-known on either campus is the installation of electric sub-meters on selected buildings. The meters allow us to target our energy efficiency strategies to the biggest consumers. Our meters not only allow us to see how much energy each building consumes, but also their demand profiles (see the post about Dana Science for an example) and voltage readings. The demand profile tells us when the building draws the most amount of power. Roughly half of our bill is based on this factor alone (called a demand charge), so it’s a pretty important feature. We hope to make all of this meter data publicly available and visible to all those who wish to see it (click here to see what Hollins has done so far).

The above graphic may not mean a whole lot to most folks, but as an energy manager it means we’re making some great strides. This is the electric demand (in kilowatts or kW) for Dana Science at Hollins over the past 2 weeks. This is a measurement of how much power the building is drawing at any given time. You might notice that the left side of the graphic is quite a bit different from the right side. That’s because before last week the building operated like it was occupied 24/7. After a little bit of work, the folks at the power plant changed some settings so that much of the building shuts down at night. This little change has saved us about 4800 kWh already, and if this pattern continues we’ll save about 290,000 kWh over the next year. That’s a savings equal to 2% of last year’s electricity consumption for the whole campus for the 2010. It’s a great first step, and something we hope to build on in the coming weeks.